Systems and Methods for Tracking Screen Updates

1. A method of capturing a screen, comprising: monitoring, by a computer system, screen changes on a first display system of the computer system, and inserting information regarding the screen changes into a queue, the information including one or more dirty packets describing screen changes in which one or more areas of the screen have been modified and one or more obliterating packets describing screen changes that are simple drawing operations, the simple drawing operations being universal with respect to at least two different operating systems; reading, by the computer system, the information from the queue; and maintaining, by the computer system, a dirty region describing areas of the screen which have been changed, the dirty region being distinct from the queue, wherein areas of the screen affected by the one or more dirty packets are added to the dirty region and areas of the screen affected by the one or more obliterating packets are subtracted from the dirty region.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the information inserted into the queue comprises serialized information.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the serialized information comprises serialized data packets.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the information further comprises copy packets describing screen to screen copy operations.

5. The method of claim 4 , further comprising: scanning through the dirty region and breaking the dirty region down into a plurality of smaller areas; for each of the smaller areas, requesting a bitmap packet for a corresponding area of the screen and placing the bitmap packet into the queue; requesting a marker packet be placed into the queue when a predetermined event occurs; and stopping scanning of the dirty region when the predetermined event occurs.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the predetermined event comprises at least one of completion of scanning though the dirty region and a predetermined amount of information having been requested.

7. The method of claim 6 , further comprising retrieving packets out of the queue and transmitting the read packets to a second display system until a marker packet is retrieved.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein when the marker packet is retrieved the marker packet is discarded and scanning of the dirty region is restarted.

9. A system for capturing a screen, comprising: a monitoring unit for monitoring screen changes on a first display system and inserting information regarding the screen changes into a queue, the information including one or more dirty packets describing screen changes in which one or more areas of the screen have been modified and one or more obliterating packets describing screen changes that are simple drawing operations, the simple drawing operations being universal with respect to at least two different operating systems; a reading unit for reading the information from the queue; and a maintaining unit for maintaining a dirty region describing areas of the screen which have been changed, the dirty region being distinct from the queue, wherein areas of the screen affected by the one or more dirty packets are added to the dirty region and areas of the screen affected by the one or more obliterating packets are subtracted from the dirty region.

10. The system of claim 9 , wherein the information inserted into the queue comprises serialized information.

11. The system of claim 10 , wherein the serialized information comprises serialized data packets.

12. The system of claim 9 , wherein the information further comprises copy packets describing screen to screen copy operations.

13. The system of claim 12 , further comprising: a scanning unit for scanning through the dirty region and breaking the dirty region down into a plurality of smaller areas; a unit that for each of the smaller areas, requesting a bitmap packet for a corresponding area of the screen and placing the bitmap packet into the queue; a requesting unit for requesting a marker packet be placed into the queue when a predetermined event occurs; and a stopping unit for stopping scanning of the dirty region when the predetermined event occurs.

14. The system of claim 13 , wherein the predetermined event comprises at least one of completion of scanning though the dirty region and a predetermined amount of information having been requested.

15. The system of claim 14 , further comprising a retrieving unit for retrieving packets out of the queue and transmitting the read packets to a second display system until a marker packet is retrieved.

16. The system of claim 15 , wherein when the marker packet is retrieved the marker packet is discarded and scanning of the dirty region is restarted.

17. A computer recording medium including computer executable code for capturing a screen, the computer executable code operable when executed by one or more processing units to perform operations comprising: monitoring screen changes on a first display system of the computer system, and inserting information regarding the screen changes into a queue, the information including one or more dirty packets describing screen changes in which one or more areas of the screen have been modified and one or more obliterating packets describing screen changes that are simple drawing operations, the simple drawing operations being universal with respect to at least two different operating systems; reading the information from the queue; and maintaining a dirty region describing areas of the screen which have been changed, the dirty region being distinct from the queue, wherein areas affected by the one or more dirty packets are added to the dirty region and areas of the screen affected by the one or more obliterating packets are subtracted from the dirty region.

18. The computer recording medium of claim 17 , wherein the information inserted into the queue comprises serialized information.

19. The computer recording medium of claim 18 , wherein the serialized information comprises serialized data packets.

20. The computer recording medium of claim 17 , wherein the information further comprises copy packets describing screen to screen copy operations.

21. The computer recording medium of claim 20 , further comprising: code for scanning through the dirty region and breaking the dirty region down into a plurality of smaller areas; code for each of the smaller areas, for requesting a bitmap packet for a corresponding area of the screen and placing the bitmap packet into the queue; code for requesting a marker packet be placed into the queue when a predetermined event occurs; and code for stopping scanning of the dirty region when the predetermined event occurs.

22. The computer recording medium of claim 21 , wherein the predetermined event comprises at least one of completion of scanning though the dirty region and a predetermined amount of information having been requested.

23. The computer recording medium of claim 22 , further comprising code for retrieving packets out of the queue and code for transmitting the read packets to a second display system until a marker packet is retrieved.

24. The computer recording medium of claim 23 , wherein when the marker packet is retrieved the marker packet is discarded and scanning of the dirty region is restarted.